


Measure For Measure

by viceindustrious



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Bugs & Insects, Fat Shaming, Food, Humiliation, M/M, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 10:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6371839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blackwood teaches Coward a lesson about appetite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measure For Measure

Dinner is held in the Hall of Long Glass, so called for the row of tall, modern mirrors which line its western wall. The feast set out upon the table is multiplied within their depths, excess upon excess. Wherever you may care to look you find the winking flame of candelabra, a richer constellation than anything in heaven, scattered light catching on cufflinks, cutlery and jewels.

Wherever _Coward_ cares to turn his head he senses the hot prickle of Blackwood’s scrutiny resting heavy upon his skin. Each movement he makes feels like a performance. He raises a forkful of duck to his mouth and bites through the crisp sear of its skin and licks his lips as he swallows. There’s something almost indecent about the way the fat melts on his tongue, so very rich.

Blackwood is fond of indecency and yet Coward finds he is afraid to search him out across the table. All night long unease has been making a fitful home in the pit of his stomach, some shadow of the look that Blackwood gave him when they said good evening earlier. He reaches for the comfort of his wine glass and toys with the stem.

“Do you agree?” Lady Unsworth is asking him.

Coward offers her a smile while he plucks out the pertinent details of her complaint. His mind may be elsewhere but he’s used enough to daydreaming in tedious company that keeping up conversational appearances is no real challenge. What was it now? She is exasperated with a servant that came to her on the recommendation of a friend.

“Ah well,” Coward says, inclining his head toward her with a conspiratorial sort of bent. “There are certain amateurs who take a special pleasure in suiting their friends with servants. An amusement which has much in common with the more ambitious occupation of match-making, don’t you think?”

She laughs, charmed, and taps him on the wrist in mock reprimand for making sport of her troubles.

“How awfully true!” she says.

There’s a pretty sort of blush upon her cheek and though Coward is sure he could have said any old thing and produced the same response, (she’s hardly difficult fare), he still finds himself gratified by the way she curls her hair around her finger and flutters her lashes as they talk.

He thinks of Blackwood watching them and his hand tightens a little on his glass. He is so certain that Blackwood _must_ be watching them, that when he finally dares to look he is utterly stunned to see him thoroughly engaged in his own conversation.

Coward brings his wine glass to his nose and breathes in deep. The aroma softens his senses a little, unwinds the tension twisting in his chest. If he closes his eyes the civilized clamour of the dining table almost sounds like a phonograph playing in a distant room.

-

After, as he waits in Blackwood’s chamber, his anticipation is a wound he cannot let alone. If he’d been asked to recount the steps that led him to this state he would not have been able to make answer. He paces, agitated, back and forth before a row of shelves; silently counting the spines of the books that fill them. The sudden, brash knell of the clock striking the hour makes his heart race.

Lord Blackwood is displeased with him, he thinks. Perhaps he smiled too often at the baroness. He forces himself to pull his thumb away from his mouth before he begins to make it bleed.

The door swings open and Blackwood enters, shutting it behind him hard enough to rattle the frame. Coward falls still at once and folds his hands demurely in front of himself. He would like to sink to his knees, but he is afraid it would be too much of a liberty. Certainly it is too much of a liberty to raise his eyes from the floor. His head feels light and hollow, yet as though a great weight were pulling it earthward.

Blackwood crosses the room, carrying with him the faint smell of smoke and midnight air. His hands are very cold when they touch Coward’s cheek. Coward parts his lips at the first, light brush of Blackwood’s thumb across his mouth, savouring the scent of leather and tobacco, but Blackwood does not linger there. Instead, his fingers find their purchase on Coward’s jaw, tipping his face up toward his own.

Coward does not want to meet that gaze, there is already something surpassingly stern in the set of Blackwood’s mouth; his lips look cruel, wine staining their creases dark and severe. But Blackwood forces him to raise his chin until, fearful as he is, it would have been too much of a disobedience to avert his eyes any longer.

In his breast, Coward can sense the half-dead, feeble fluttering of an instinct to run. There is nothing of mercy in Blackwood’s countenance at all.

“Coward,” Blackwood says. “I know I made myself clear.”

The icy displeasure in his tone undoes Coward completely. Words of apology leap to the tip of his tongue but he has no idea what precisely he should be apologizing for and he can’t beg for forgiveness in generalities for Blackwood despises that kind of incoherent pleading.

“Certainly you did, my lord,” he says, for fear of saying nothing. A hoarse sort of whisper, his throat is bone dry.

It’s torture to stand in Blackwood’s ill favour like this. His fingernails are driving divots into the palms of his hands. Blackwood gives his chin a dismissive, disappointed tap with the back of his hand and then releases him, walking over to the long, button-back settee and sinking down upon it. He stretches out his leg and raises one eyebrow and Coward swells with relief at the unspoken command, hastily falling to his knees at Blackwood’s feet and beginning to unlace the proffered shoe. Still trembling inside, grateful but uncertain, he bends his head to press a kiss to the leather but Blackwood twists his foot away.

“Spare me,” Blackwood scoffs.

Coward flinches and returns to his task. He cups the back of Blackwood’s ankle gently as he helps him out of his shoe, cherishing the warmth of the skin he can feel through his sock. He wants so badly to kiss him there too, to be allowed to wriggle down onto his belly and worship the lowest point of Blackwood’s body, but whatever he has done, he knows it’s more than he deserves. He does not rise from his knees as he goes to fetch Blackwood’s slippers from the other side of the room, crawling back with them in one hand.

Blackwood sighs as Coward carefully fits them onto his feet. “So obedient when you want to be.”

Again, Coward casts around desperately in his mind, trying to work out what his trespass might be. An image floats up to him of the flogger Blackwood had shown him of late. A fine looking instrument, he can remember very well the pretty stitching at the end of each thong and the way Blackwood had guided his hand so he could feel for himself the little lead weights sewn in there. Perhaps Blackwood merely wishes to beat him? But then, he would never bother with the pretence of needing an excuse for that.

“Did you forget what I told you, Coward?” Blackwood says, smiling.

There are worlds of ruin in such a smile. The fear it births inside Coward is bright and sobering.

“I’m sorry,” he says, unable to stop himself.

Blackwood’s eyes widen so that for an instant Coward can see the ring of white all the way around his irises. He cringes back, tries to sink into himself somehow, become smaller, become invisible. A terrible, foolish instinct, he knows.

“You haven’t been taking good care of my property,” Blackwood says, pushing the toe of his slipper against Coward’s stomach. “You pampered little swine. Didn’t I tell you you’d better watch your figure?”

Coward blinks, mouth agape, struck dumb with surprise.

“Oh, you thought I wasn’t serious?” Blackwood gives a short, harsh bark of laugher and then his mouth curls up in a sneer of disgust. “You think you’re such a pretty creature, don’t you Coward? Yes, I’m sure you’ve never had a moments doubt about it. Over-indulging at all the best tables in London, fattening yourself up.”

Coward looks down to where Blackwood’s foot is digging into his abdomen and then back up in plaintive bewilderment, just in time to see Blackwood’s hand as it strikes out toward him, seizing him by the throat. Blackwood’s fingers wrap around his neck, squeezing until he can feel each heartbeat pulsing hot and tight behind his eyes. The cry he makes is strangled into a pitiful, reedy wheeze.

“It’s repulsive,” Blackwood says, his voice entirely cool even as he chokes Coward’s vision grey. “Isn’t it?”

Coward tries to nod.

Blackwood releases him and Coward falls forward into a coughing fit.

“You have grown complacent, Coward and I’m afraid that simply will not stand.”

-

There are fresh candles burning in the dining hall and Coward has the strangest sense that Blackwood lit them himself. Stripped of its linen, the ebon expanse of the table seems massive and faintly sinister. Blackwood guides him to the chair at the head and pushes him down. He needn’t have used so much force, Coward feels too weak to do much of anything but fall into the seat and yet the weight of Blackwood’s hand on his shoulder is queerly comforting despite all the dread it foretells.

“I’ll do better,” he whispers, mostly to himself. He knows it’s too late for such nonsense.

Blackwood presses his thumb into the soft underside of his jaw. “You’ll do as you’re told.”

“Yes, Lord Blackwood.”

“Good boy,” Blackwood says, but there’s a sickly sweet insincerity to the praise that makes a mockery of the words and Coward feels ashamed of himself that he deserves no better.

The waistband of his trousers presses into him, awful as a brand. He clutches at his stomach, pinching his flesh between his fingers, only half aware of what he’s doing. Repulsive, Blackwood said, how could he not have realized? He stares at his waistcoat buttons warily, do they look as though they are straining? He hadn’t thought so before but now he isn’t sure at all.

Tearing his eyes away from himself, he sees Blackwood standing at the sideboard. Everything from dinner has been cleared away and sitting atop it now there is only a large silver salver covered by a matching cloche. It should mean nothing to him, just a simple piece of polished tableware, but his heart plummets at the sight. The bright curve of light reflecting off its dome seems all too much like the grin of jackal. If it were innocent it would not be here.

“Since you clearly need correction,” Blackwood says, lifting the salver and placing it on the dining table before Coward. “And seeing how eager you are to clean your own plate, I thought it only appropriate that you extend that courtesy to the rest of the household.”

Blackwood’s hand rests on the top of the cloche and though Coward may not know what he means by those words, he is utterly certain, as certain as the knowledge that he will not rise from this chair without Blackwood’s leave, that he does not want to see what lies beneath.

As if reading his mind, Blackwood toys with the foliate handle, tracing the curl of a silver leaf.

“The scullery maid has been preparing this meal for you the past fortnight,” he says. “Naturally I spared her the exact details, but fortunately she didn’t need too much direction to simply keep an extra pail beneath the sink for bits and pieces of all the kitchen refuse.”

Blackwood lifts the cover from the salver and sets it aside. The smell hits Coward before he can make sense of what he’s seeing and he pushes his chair away from the table violently.

“Oh no,” Blackwood warns, stepping behind him and pushing the chair right back with an angry squeal of wood.

Coward twists toward him.

“You want me to . . .”

He can’t even say it.

“Eat,” Blackwood says.

Coward turns queasily back to the table.

In the grim mess piled high on his plate, half familiar forms lie clumped together, rising from a greyish sludge. Pools of oil shine in the candlelight, little pearls of congealed grease floating on their surface. A thick strip of mutton fat lies next to a handful of strawberries, barely discernible beneath their sprouting coats of white mould. There’s a slurry of pastry crumbs, old gravy and what looks like curdled custard, mixed in with scraps of vegetable peel.

He thinks he recognizes the half-eaten cheese soufflé from Monday’s dinner and what could be the remains of the banana fritter from desert, now almost entirely black and liquefying into a slime.

The clink of glass on glass draws his grateful eyes away from the plate. Blackwood is at the sideboard again, pouring himself a drink.

“I grant it hasn’t all kept perfectly,” Blackwood says. He raises his hand and swirls an eddy into the whiskey. The glint in his eyes, considering Coward over the rim of the glass, might better belong to something large and sleek that stalks through the long grass. “Conditions in the kitchen were not the most ideal, you know how it can be.”

He picks up a neat parcel of silverware, knife, fork and spoon wrapped in a crisp, white napkin.

“Or perhaps not. I should doubt you have the slightest idea of what it’s like below stairs,” Blackwood says.

He places the cutlery to the side of Coward’s plate and unfolds the napkin. Coward has to clasp his hands together to keep them from shaking, his fingers twisting into a tight, clammy knot. Blackwood lays each utensil out with surgical deliberation and Coward tries not to follow the path of his hand as it passes over the plate to set his fork on the left since every passing glance at his meal seems to reveal some fresh new horror.

The black little lump, half-submerged in a blob of bright, red currant jelly is not the burnt remainder of something served at table. It has two fine antennae.

“No,” Coward whispers, staring.

Blackwood tugs a lock of his hair in mild admonishment.

“The trouble is the range produces such a lot of heat. It’s an awful aid to putrefaction,” he says.

He tucks Coward’s hair back behind his ear and the brush of his thumbnail there sets a rash of goose bumps running like a cold flash over Coward’s skin. Perhaps it’s his voice as much as his touch, measured and deep and honeyed with an infinite capacity for cruelty. He must notice where Coward’s eyes are fixed for he brings thumb and forefinger almost together, hovering just above the moribund black-beetle.

“Imagine how the floor must heave in the night with these pests. There’s only so much that can be done with carbolic. You’re quite lucky you know, I did consider having you down there to scrub the linoleum with your tongue. The steam carries all that grease and soot into the most difficult crevices and your mouth is far more accomplished than a wash brush, hmmm?”

Coward’s stomach clenches uneasily, he tries very hard not to imagine anything at all.

“Open your mouth, Coward,” Blackwood says.

Coward shakes his head, such a tight, fast movement it’s more of a shudder than a negation. Shakes his head but opens his mouth all the same, so broken in to the command that to disobey would be unthinkable. Blackwood lowers his fingers a little and then pauses for one excruciating heartbeat, before swerving away from the beetle and plucking up one of the strawberries by its wilted stem.

“Put out that filthy little tongue of yours.”

Haltingly, he does.

 _Eating strawberries from my lover’s hand_ , he thinks, more than a trifle hysterically.

Blackwood turns the strawberry carefully in his fingers. The fruit is cloaked in decay, one last glimpse of moist, red flesh left peeking out indecently, not quite covered by rot. The worst of it is has turned from white to a malignant grey verditer. It’s this part that he presses against the sensitive flat of Coward’s tongue.

The mould sloughs off as Blackwood drags the berry down to the tip, back up, clogging Coward’s mouth with the taste of dank, wet earth. Coward’s knuckles ache with how tight his fingers are squeezed together. He keeps his tongue out, manages somehow not to gag as Blackwood pushes the fruit all the way in to the back of his mouth.

“There you are,” Blackwood murmurs, taking his fingers away.

It’s soft enough that he can manage to swallow without having to burst the foul little core of it and so he does. He is sure he can feel it slipping all the way down until it rests unhappily in the pit of his stomach.

Blackwood wipes his fingers on the collar of Coward’s shirt. He takes up his drink again. Coward exhales and pries his hands apart, anxiously tracing the half ring of condensation left behind on the table by the glass.

“Why don’t you pick up your fork,” Blackwood says as he pulls out a chair for himself and settles down.

 _You can’t truly mean it!_ Coward wants desperately to exclaim, to beg in truth, for he knows all too well that Blackwood can mean it. Can, and, from only one look at him, clearly _does_.

“Lord Blackwood, I promise, I swear I-“

The warning furrow on Blackwood’s brow makes him choke the rest of his words back down and fumble so quickly for the fork that he almost knocks it to the floor. He sits there, clutching it, the metal warming beneath his hand.

“Clean your plate,” Blackwood says.

Coward stares down at the dish with utter despair.

He shifts his weight from side to side, one foot tapping a tarantella against the chair leg. He counts his breath, inhalation, exhalation, nine times round and then begins again at one. He tells himself he’ll begin on the ninth breath, then lets the moment pass once more. Each time his breath comes a little quicker. The handle of the fork is making a dull, red dimple in his palm.

_The strawberries then. It’s not so bad, it’s not, don’t mushrooms grow in the dark and dank, this mould is just-_

Allowing himself to think that word is a mistake. Better not to think at all. He scoops a strawberry up with his fork and brings it to his mouth before he has time to dwell on what he is doing. This time he has to chew, just once. The taste of dirt is overwhelmed by a sudden gush of rotten sweetness that fizzes across his tongue.

One after the other, he forces himself through the strawberries until all that’s left is a black stain covering the slice of bread they had been heaped on.

He tries the soufflé next. It’s sodden with some kind of sauce and crumbles to pieces as he takes a piece. As soon as the taste of it hits him he has to drop the fork and press both hands desperately to his mouth. He retches, bile stinging the back of his throat. Week old shrimp sauce is oozing from the congealed mouthful of eggs his body refuses to allow him to swallow, every time he tries his stomach revolts and he retches again, his abdomen cramping hard.

Finally, banging his fist hard on the table, he manages it. When he looks at the plate again his eyes start to sting, it seems piled as high as ever.

His hand is shaking as he takes up his fork once more.

It must take an age for him to work his way through even half the plate, but if the clock strikes, he does not hear it. He is trying to shut his ears to the too loud sound of gristle popping between his teeth. Each mouthful is harder than the last, the deeper he digs into the mound of refuse the worse he discovers. The stench of the thin, oily liquid covering the bottom of the plate, the accumulation of whatever vile juices have seeped out over all these days of decomposition, is noxious beyond all bearing.

When he sets his knife to the thick, yellow ribbon of fat, Blackwood stirs.

“No, Coward,” he says.

Coward stops. Blackwood is leaning forward in his seat, one finger running around the rim of his now empty glass. How long ago had he finished his drink? He hasn’t moved in all that time. Now Coward believes he can see what’s roiling darkly just below that smooth, still surface. In just two words, in that one gesture of his hand, the vicious wire of Blackwood’s pleasure is coiling tight. Un-blinkered by any arousal of his own, the stark, raw sight of Blackwood’s appetite for his suffering chills Coward to the core.

“You’re bolting your food,” Blackwood says, clucking his tongue in disapproval. “Pick it up.”

Coward glazes uncertainly from Blackwood back to the plate and then starts to press the tines of his fork into the mutton fat.

“Use your hands,” Blackwood snaps.

Coward lays his knife and fork down and straightens each out perpendicular to the plate; takes a breath, adjusts them again. He can feel the glow of Blackwood’s impatience upon him. The wide strip of fat is slick and spongy between his fingers, unfurling limply. As he lifts it, small, white grains fall and scatter onto the plate below.

Where they continue to move.

Lazily, like in a dream, he turns his hand and somehow keeps his grip when the infestation gorging itself on the underside of the strip reveals itself. It seems as though, undulating, they turn their blind little heads to stare back at him. Tiny clusters of unhatched eggs remain dotted here and there.

One glance at Blackwood is enough to tell how far begging will get him and a silent sob bursts free from his throat because he knows what happens next, there’s not the slightest hope of changing it.

“All at once,” Blackwood says, his voice sounds rough. “Do remember to chew properly.”

Of course he will obey. Just as Blackwood says, hasn’t he always? Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles and he has kept nothing of himself inviolate. He welcomed the lingering touch of Blackwood’s fingers on his tongue the first time he knelt and took a black communion from his hand; worshipped at the flesh Blackwood preaches will lie entombed and rise again. Whatever profane energies thrive in Blackwood are more dreadful than grave worms.

The larvae squirm beneath his fingers as he parcels up the fat and stuffs it into his mouth, eyes fixed toward the ceiling, trying hard not to breathe. As fast as he can chew, it’s not fast enough that he doesn’t feel them wriggling against his gums, the roof of his mouth. The fat itself is rancid and tough as rubber. He gags and this time he’s sure he’s going to vomit, his whole body heaving. Blackwood half rises from his seat, both hands planted firm on the table, looming over him.

“Careful, Coward. Anything that leaves your mouth will only have to be licked back up.”

Coward clenches his jaw so hard the roots of his teeth ache. Swallows over and over, past the painful tight lump of his throat, his eyes springing hot with tears.

After that the beetle is hardly any trouble at all.

-

“Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” Blackwood asks, once the plate is clear.

Coward nods mutely. He is afraid to open his mouth. His left hand is pressed tight against his stomach, as though that might ease the nausea rolling over him in grand and violent waves.

“Hmmmm,” Blackwood’s lips twitch into a smile like a razor. “Take off your clothes.”

Coward’s legs feel half-dead beneath him as he rises to undress. Cold sweat has left his shirt soaked beneath his arms and damp against his back and he shivers once it’s gone, the night’s chill cleaving to his clammy skin. Blackwood’s eyes crawl upon him too, colder by far. He makes no comment as Coward peels away each layer, standing finally, barefoot and naked before him.

“Disgusting, Coward. Just look at you,” Blackwood says.

Coward flinches, one hand gripping his wrist, trying to hide behind his own arms.

  
“You’ll fast for the next week,” Blackwood says. “I’ll have the maid keep on with her collection. If you find your hunger becoming intolerable then you can have as much of that as you like.”

He pushes his chair back and grips Coward by the arm, pulling him forcefully away from the table. Coward almost trips over his own feet, stumbling after him.

“Though next time you’ll be eating it from the floor like a proper piglet.”

He shoves Coward hard between the shoulder blades, hooking Coward’s ankle so he hits the ground with a sickening jolt through his knees, palms stinging as they meet the floor. He wrenches Coward’s hair back, pulling him onto his knees, throat bared in a severe arch.

“And you’ll be seeing a new tailor,” Blackwood says. “He’ll cut your clothes to my specifications. If you fail to starve this sloppy body of yours back down to something worthy of my use I’m sure you’ll look very foolish indeed, but that’s no concern of mine.”

Blackwood turns his head toward one of the tall mirrors that line the wall and though Coward can only see the vague suggestion of their figures in the gloom, Blackwood dark, bent over him and the pallor of his own skin, the shape of his flesh is something he wants to run from. He thinks of those glistening, chubby little maggots crawling inside him, all plump and white, just like him, how right Blackwood is to be disgusted. He tries to turn his head away from the sight but Blackwood’s fingers hold him fast and so, unthinking, he grasps blindly at the hem of Blackwood’s trousers as though somehow he could cover himself that way. Blackwood huffs in contempt and twists the hair clasped tight in his fist.

“Do you have anything to say?” Blackwood asks.

“Thank you, my lord.”


End file.
